BY PAUL GEISIK
Los Alamos
On August 5, 2026, the Los Alamos Police Department issued a news release touting its recent success achieved through its use of license plate readers.(https://losalamosreporter.com/2026/08/05/los-alamos-police-department-makes-three-arrests-through-teamwork-technology-and-specialized-resources/) No specific details are given about the arrests, other than that two of them occurred on or about July 28, 2026, and the last of them occurred on August 5, 2026, and that they pertained to warrants. The release is quite vague, and provides no meaningful detail as to what these warrants were for, or what threat these individuals posed to society.
The police blotter for August 5 has not yet been published such that it is not publicly known who would have been arrested on that date, but a review of the July 22-July 28, 2026 blotter reveals two arrests for outstanding warrants on July 28. One was for a 54 year-old man subject to a municipal court warrant. I do not have quick access to the municipal court record, so I have not verified that this arrest is one of those referenced in the news release. Regardless, it is unlikely that the offense for which the warrant was issued was a serious one, as most cases in municipal court are for traffic offenses and minor violations. The other arrest was for a 38 year-old woman with a magistrate court warrant. I pulled the statement of probable cause filed July 29, 2026 for the charges brought against that woman in the Los Alamos County Magistrate Court, and I believe this is the arrest which the LAPD reports was the result of the use of license plate readers.
The statement references a warrant from the Santa Fe County Magistrate Court. That warrant was for failure to appear on a citation for violation of §66-07-317 NMSA 1978 — Failure to Maintain Traffic Lane. As for the substance of the new charges against this woman, they are shoplifting in the alleged amount of $38.71, and two low level felonies for drug possession
These are not great victories, and in fact it is not hard to understand why the LAPD did not provide any details as to these arrests. They are not noteworthy or impressive. It is more noteworthy that the LAPD felt the need to brag about them at all. It is highly concerning to me that the LAPD is making use of a controversial technology which raises serious privacy concerns to track down minor offenders. It is further concerning to me that, when it chose to brag about those arrests in its news release, the LAPD felt no particular need to be transparent enough for the public to even have an idea what the LAPD was bragging about. How can we trust the LAPD to responsibly use this technology when the LAPD cannot even be transparent enough to let us know what they are even bragging about in their news releases?
Editor’s note: The Los Alamos Reporter reached out to LAPD on receipt of the news release to find out if the names of those arrested would be included in today’s weekly press report. The response was that, “They should, if the reports were approved on time. If not, they will (not) be released.” There were, however, not arrests in this week’s press report.
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